Salmonella Infection Disease Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay

Salmonella Infectious Diseases
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Introduction
Salmonella is a bacteria responsible for a variety of food borne infectious diseases such as typhoid, enteric fever, food poisoning and gastroenteritis. The bacteria are rod shaped, gram negative and motile bacilli that moves using peritrichous flagella. Humans contact these diseases from uncooked meat including seafood and poultry, uncooked eggs, fruits and vegetables washed in contaminated water, from reptile pets and amphibians, unclean water and general lack of hygiene. Symptoms include abdominal pains, blood stained stools, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting and headaches CITATION Tan13 \l 1033 (Acharya, 2013).
Salmonella Bacteria
The diagnosis of the infectious disease is done through laboratory test on samples of either fecal material, duodenal aspirate, bone marrow or blood culture CITATION Tan13 \l 1033 (Acharya, 2013). This paper focuses on the blood sample test and the results expected in laboratory test.
Salmonella Diagnosis
A patient suffering from any of the salmonella infectious diseases will complain of sustained fever, abdominal pains and chills and to confirm the presence of these bacteria cab ne screened through blood culture. This is preferred over fecal sample because it has a 40-80% sensitivity and proven effective for diagnosis of non-typhoid salmonella infections and enteric fever. For effectiveness of laboratory test, blood of a patient should be collected early in the disease period, a week or two from first symptom this is because during this phase it is easy to detect foreign organisms in the blood and when possible before any microbial are administered because when administered they lower the blood sensitivity to 40% and below CITATION Joh15 \l 1033 (John A. Crump, etal, 2015).
When carrying out this test, the phlebotomist or the medical practitioner should pay attention to the ratio of blood to the culture. Amount of blood is critical for optimal results, this is because in each milliliter there is less than 10 count of bacteria and it can be as low as 1 count, the amount depends on age and the culture amount either 80ml or 40ml broth with the former being used for patients aged 15 years and above and the latter for patients below 15 years. The younger the patient, the less the amount of blood required CITATION Joh15 \l 1033 (John A. Crump, etal, 2015). In case a medical practitioner wishes to prepare the culture instead of the prepared one, the ratio of blood volume to culture volume should be 1:10. Blood is collected from a patient using a syringe and immediately inoculated in a blood culture container or bottle using the same collecting syringe and stored at incubation of 37 degrees. The table below represent the amount of blood culture required per age and the culture amount. The table below represent the amount of blood culture required per age and the culture amount.
Blood required for blood culture testing
Age of patient

40ml broth culture bottle

80ml broth culture bottle

3 months – < 2 years

1 – 2ml


2 years - < 5 years

2 -3 ml


5 - < 15 years

5 -10ml


Adult - > 15 years


8-10ml

Laboratory test Results
Laboratory results for salmonella bacteria should be checked for gas formation, turbidity and growth of culture. In blood agar culture, salmonella typhi and salmonella paratyphi produce non-hemolytic smooth white colonies. Salmonella does not ferment lactose and thus form smooth colonies on MacConkey agar CITATION Tan13 \l 1033 (Acharya, 2013).
Colonies collected from the agar are then screened through two tests, the triple sugar iron agar and Motility Indole Urea...